THE BLOCK
by valentiia
Summary: A story about surmounting the insurmountable. (Semi crack!fic.)


**THE BLOCK**

_ a story about surmounting the insurmountable_

**Warning: Infrequent coarse language**

* * *

One fine morning, out the north-east end of the Smash Brothers' Stadium, Pit found a huge block.

"What the?" he said, regarding the block with bewildered interest. He stared at it very hard. He tried tilting his head and stroking his chin in an attempt to incite an epiphany. He then got into a handstand.

Despite the blood rush to his brain, he could not discern any meaning to the block's existence or its precise placement in the centre of the outdoor training ring. However, he made many other insights into life, the universe and why people liked Ike so much, all in such quick succession that he forgot each and every one of them a split second later.

"What are you doing?" a voice said.

With a yelp, the startled Pit toppled over, sending up a cloud of dirt and loosed down from his wings. The voice's owner leaned over him as he groaned.

"Is this another one of your morning rituals?" Samus asked. "Looking at life from a different angle?"

"Nope... Wait, what?!" The angel shot up into a sitting position, despite the protests of his sore back. "Morning rituals?! I-I don't have any of those!"

"I've seen you make a pyramid out of the cups in the dining hall at least three days per week. And just a heads up: people have heard you sing in the shower."

Pit was sure his face was redder than all the tomatoes in the worlds. "Y-You were dreaming!"

Samus smirked and pulled him to his feet without warning. He nearly fell over again.

"So, what's with the rock?" Samus asked, gesturing to the rectangular block. Now that she looked at it properly, its edges were so perfectly sharp that her eyeballs suddenly felt quite inadequately protected.

Pit shrugged.

"It's in the way," Samus said. "I heard Bowser and Wario were planning to settle a score today. They're not going to be happy."

"I WON'T BE HAPPY UNTIL THAT NUMBSKULL IS THOROUGHLY SMASHED BY MY HAND!"

"Speak of the _devil_!" Pit cried as a furious Bowser burst forth from the trees at the other end of the clearing. He let his tongue loll out in disgust. "Yuck, that word tasted _bad_."

"Good morning, King Bowser," Samus greeted.

"That's _King_ Bowser to you," Bowser grumbled distractedly, breaking off a tree branch to use as a toothpick.

"I-Isn't that what she said?" Pit stammered. "Also, how many people are going to burst in and scare me half to death?"

"You called?" a new voice said.

"NYEH." He stepped to the side after figuratively getting back into the skin he'd figuratively jumped out of. "What are you doing here, Pittoo?"

"That's not my name and I came to watch the fight," Dark Pit said as he folded his arms, "but it looks like they're no-shows."

"Excuse me!" Bowser hollered. "That butt Wario said he'd have his butt here by three minutes ago."

"Tsk, tsk. I expected a show, Bowser. I'm disappointed in you."

The Koopa roared at the sky.

"I don't think it would have been good entertainment anyway," Dark Pit muttered aside to Pit. "A fight between Bowser and Wario would have _stunk_."

"Oh!" Pit suddenly exclaimed, punching Dark Pit in the arm. "Speaking of entertainment..."

"Ow."

"I just remembered that Shulk and Robin were going to experiment with items from the storage room. They said it's a 'safety assessment'."

"I guess seeing nerds blow themselves up would be better than this," Dark Pit conceded. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Pit dragged him away.

"Onward to science!" Samus heard Pit holler as the pair disappeared into the Stadium. She looked back at Bowser, who had managed to get his toothpick lodged between his teeth and was trying to pick it out with another one.

"Do you think this is one of Master Hand's pranks?" Samus asked him. "He has a propensity for leaving... surprises for us."

"Surprises, surschmises," Bowser muttered. Then the branch he was holding also got stuck. "Dang it all!" He stood up with a stomp that shook some leaves loose and trudged away into the woods to do who knows what.

Samus shrugged and re-entered the Stadium, leaving the block to its own devices.

*.*.*.*.*

Needless to say, the block had many devices to pull on the Stadium's inhabitants throughout the day.

"What do you think it means?" Lucina pondered, pacing around the block and observing its perfect, _perfect_ edges. She reached out to touch one and drew back with a yelp and a sore finger.

"I have no clue," Marth said. "I don't mind art, but it's a little too abstract for me to believe this isn't a waste of our time."

"Maybe that's it," Ike suggested. "Maybe it's telling us to get on with our lives. Or maybe that we're all featureless rocks that want attention but don't do jack shit to get it. Or the futility of forging our own identities because we're ultimately the same faceless rocks beneath it all...? "

Before Lucina could protest against Ike's increasingly nihilistic insights, Robin appeared.

"How did it go?" Marth asked her.

Robin shook some soot out of her snowy hair. "The two Pits dropped by. With smoke balls. Those things are _flammable_."

"Those miscreants," Lucina said darkly. Then, her face brightened up. "Are you okay?"

"I think it was Dark Pit's plotting, actually. Pit himself seemed rather disgruntled when he pulled the smoke balls out. And yes, Shulk and I are fine, thank you."

"That's good. So, what do you make of this block?"

Robin stroked her chin. "I'd say it's something we should consult Master Hand about, but he's been missing all day. That block's thrown a wrench in the scheduling, and if it carries over to tomorrow, then we'll be seeing a few more explosions around."

"Wait," Ike said. "What if we blew it up?"

*.*.*.*.*

"C'mon, Luke, you can do it! I believe in you!"

"Ness, I _can't_! I'm gonna mess it up..."

Lucas winced as he shakily held a Mr Saturn above a tower of five others.

Seeing this Saturn above them, the tower began chanting, "Six! Six! Six!"

Lucas was about to place the Mr Saturn down when the door slammed open. In fright, he dropped the Saturn and the tower crumbled, the Saturns cheering all the way.

"Saturn down!"

"Down down! Zoom!"

"Only five could tower!"

"Sorry, my hand slipped," Marth apologised. "What are you doing in here?" He stared at the swarm of Mr Saturns crawling around on the floor.

"We tried and failed to make a tower of Mr Saturns," Lucas explained. "What are you here for?"

"I was looking for explosives."

"Whoa, Marth," Ness said, raising his hands. "I never thought you'd be the type."

"I'm not."

"I know."

"I thought so. We're trying to deal with the block in the clearing."

"Bowser and Red's Charizard already tried that," Lucas said. "They even tried to sic a flock of cuccos on it afterwards."

"It's funny because the plan backfired and they went after Bowser instead," Ness said, trying very, _very_ hard not to lose his composure. "Poor guy."

"So that's why he's still in a foul mood," Marth said. "Has anyone else tried to remove the block?"

"Everyone's already tried everything they could. Kirby tried to swallow it and Link got Ganondorf to have at it with a home-run bat. Roy tried to reason with it diplomatically and the _other_ Roy stole Bowser Jr's paintbrush thing to graffiti all over it."

"And the Chaos Emeralds didn't work either?"

"Nope."

"The Monado?"

"Like cutting a diamond with a plastic knife."

Marth sighed. "I guess we should leave it be. Worrying about it isn't doing many of us any good. Have you heard anything from Master Hand?"

Lucas shook his head. "He's still missing."

Marth frowned. "I think it's time to send out a search party."

*.*.*.*.*

In the dark of the storage room, Fox, Falco, Meta Knight, ROB and Palutena sat around a round wooden table.

"Status report?" Fox requested, rotating the head of the desk lamp to face Palutena.

"Well," the Goddess of Light began, tilting her head to cast unearthly shadows over her face, "there's been no sign of Master Hand, but I _have_ overheard some juicy gossip from Peach and Samus about a certain Captain Falcon."

"I thought the criterion for members of the Council of the Round Table in the Dark of the Storage Room was 'unwavering focus'," ROB said. "Also, I would like to file a complaint on the naming of said council and suggest a shortened —"

"Hey, old timer," Falco interrupted, "'a sense of humour' was written in fine print."

"There was no written document."

"Also, you're jumping to conclusions – I _was_ doing my job," Palutena added with a sly grin. "It was just something I happened to overhear."

ROB sunk with a _whirr_. "I'm just worried about Master Hand."

"Yeah, cut the guy some slack," Fox said, fixing the lamp on the robot. "Has Mr Game and Watch given you any info?"

ROB shook his head.

"Well, this has gone to shit," Falco said, putting his feet up on the table. "This council is officially a waste of time. Let the god come back when he wants to. _If_ he wants to."

"We have no reason to believe he deliberately abandoned us for good," Meta Knight said.

"That doesn't make the situation any better," Palutena commented.

"No, and ROB has the right to be worried. Without Master Hand around, we might need to cancel a few of our... riskier activities as a precaution. Without Master Hand as our safety net —"

"Master Hand is hardly ever around, anyway! That's why the kids are allowed to draw on the walls and we adults are allowed to play Russian Roulette with the modified lightning bolts."

"But _we_ have to do the cleaning up," Falco sulked. "And thank the engineer behind those modified bolts. We may never know who did it – well, there we go, another mystery!"

"Master Hand's disappearance, _without_ giving us any warning, is very suspicious and calls for investigation," ROB asserted.

"Relax, ROB," Fox assured him. "Master Hand is powerful. Have some faith in him."

"I'd like to but... oh, okay."

"That's good."

"So, does anyone else have any information?" Palutena asked. She rotated the desk lamp around the circumference of the table. No one replied in the positive.

"Then this council's dismissed," Fox said.

*.*.*.*.*

"Welcome to Nana's Ice Climbing Session!"

"Popo. And Popo."

"Bluuuh. Nana _and Popo's_ Ice Climbing Session." Nana brandished her ice axe, narrowly missing her twin's head. "Happy now?"

"Ecstatic," Popo replied flatly.

"Great. Now!" Nana clapped her hands. "Today we'll be learning to – are you guys even listening?!"

She crossed her arms and frowned at their audience of three, who were huddled around a certain spot on the block.

"What's so interesting? Is it alive? Haunted? Come on, we were gonna teach you how to climb this thing!"

"I don't think we could climb it, anyway," Popo said, tilting his head up to face the block's flat surface. "Remember when Shulk tried to cut off a chunk to study? Emphasis on _tried_."

"But we're the Ice Climbers!" Nana cried. "We can take on any rocky behemoth who stands in our way. Right, Tink?"

The younger Link, who had been dubbed 'Tink' – short for 'Toon' Link – turned to her gravely and said, "This is unlike any rock I've ever seen. Also, I still don't get the 'Toon' bit of my nickname."

"We went through this before," Ness said. "You'll understand when you're older," he added with an impish grin.

"But isn't Tink from some sort of quasi-Middle Ages time period?" Lucas argued. "He'd have to be _really_ old, then."

"Now you're just making up words," Nana pouted. "So can you tell me what's got you so not focused on me?"

"Okay," Tink said. "So, I stole Ness' black light to use on the block —"

"He was so lazy he didn't even ask me for it," Ness interjected.

"Yes, that. And then I found something." He stepped back and pointed so the Ice Climbers could see. In the region Tink was holding the light to, in perfect print was the word 'writer's' surrounded by a rectangular border.

Popo stared at the block.

Nana stared at the block.

"That's dumb," she said.

As soon as the words left her mouth, the ground quaked beneath them, and out of the trees came a large white blur.

_YIPPEE KI-YAY!_ a teetering, disembodied voice bellowed.

A split second later, the world around the children was filled with dust, shrapnel and what sounded like a huge bone cracking. They were thrown onto their backs.

When the haze settled, they saw that the training ring was oddly bare.

"Where did the block go?!" Tink exclaimed.

_You have me to thank for that!_ the disembodied voice yelled, loud enough for the children to cover their ears. _I bet you a had a ball while it was around. I think you should thank me for that, too._

"Who are you?!" Nana demanded. She got to her feet with her axe at the ready.

The voice's owner revealed itself from behind a tree.

"W-what?" Lucas stammered, shaking the dust out of his face. "That can't be —"

"Master Hand?" Ness was incredulous. "No, that's not – what did you do with him?!"

_Master Hand?_ the twitching doppelganger chortled. _Oh, _that_ fellow. What a charmer! You'll be pleased to know that he's in tip-top condition – right as rain, alive and kicking – catch my drift?_

"I am _surfing_ that drift, man," Nana responded. "So, where is he?"

As soon as the words left her mouth, the world erupted again.

The children shied away from the dazzle of light. When they opened their eyes, they saw instead a far less twitchy hand in the middle of the ring, with one finger outstretched.

_Thank goodness I dealt with him,_ Master Hand breathed, letting himself sag. _He's_ Crazy.

* * *

**A/N: Hello, Fanfiction. How are you? I have been up to many things since I last posted. Writing actual fics hasn't been one of them. **

**You're more than welcome to shoot at me your own crazy thoughts on this... piece.**


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